Day 41 or Finis!

Notes on Day 41, March 5, At Land's End

This morning I took my sweet and juicy clementines and pastry and climbed to the highest point on the eastern side of the peninsula and watched the sun rise on a new chapter in my life, wondering what the next road will bring.



Weeks ago I met an Italian girl, Sara, and I asked her why she was doing the Camino. ¨Lots of reasons...but, maybe some I don´t know yet,¨ she answered quietly. I don't imagine I know all the reasons I did this Camino either, and I wonder if weeks from now, when I am home and trying to find a job and paying the bills and trying to figure out what to do next, that new reasons will appear along with my new way.



Remember in The Last Crusade when Indiana Jones was trying to find the Holy Grail, and the last task he faced was to leap across a canyon. There was no apparent way across, no bridge, no rope to swing on, no place to attach his whip. And he realized he must make a leap of faith. He must believe, and completely commit to that belief, that the way would appear.



I don't know why, but sometimes in life we are called to completely leave the path we are on before we know what the new path will be, or even that there is one at all. Some might call this crazy, irresponsible, foolish. Others my call it brave. It doesn't really matter either way. The point is that sometimes, you just have to jump without seeing the bottom, because it is impossible to remain where you are. This is both crazy and brave. But the old way is untenable, and even though you have no clue what the new way is, or where it is, the hardest thing in the world is to muster the faith to believe it will appear. But I believe it always does.



We each hold the key to our own prisons.

And with that I leave you with the words of Marianne Williamson, printed in the back of my guidebook (but the guidebook author can't take all the credit, cause I knew I wanted to quote this before I saw that he had!)


Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is out Light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn´t serve the world.
There´s nothing enlightened about shrinking,
So that other people won´t feel insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest the Glory of God that is within us.
It´s not just in some of us; it´s in everyone.
And as we let our light shine,
We unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
Our presence automatically liberates others.



Finis